participant_observation_essay

8/7/2019 participant_observation_essay

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Evaluate the uses and limitationsof participant observation as a method of

sociological enquiry.

This essay asks you to evaluate the uses and limitations of participant observation (PO).When you are asked to evaluate something, make sure you do just that. Aim to be ascritical as possible because basic descriptions without critical analysis do not attract veryhigh marks. I n order to score highly for this particular essay, you must first offer support forthe use of participant observation and then present a strong critique of participantobservation as a method of sociological enquiry. Strong candidates should be able to offerjustification of the method despite the criticisms. Use examples of investigations todemonstrate your points. Remember that you are being assessed on knowledge andunderstanding, application skills and your ability to evaluate.

nswerIn the first paragraph not onlyhave I set the scene, but I havetold the reader that I know thedifference between positivistmethodology and interactionistmethodology.

Observation is used in every sociological study. For example,positivists may make observations by comparing various statis-tics, like Durkheim who compared the suicide rates of differentcountries and drew conclusions from the findings. However, inter-actionists argue against the methodology adopted by positivists.Interactionists believe that in order to investigate society, the


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former is known as covert participant observation, the latter as overtparticipant observation.

Many interactionists believe that participant observation is theonly method which provides a way of gaining an insight into anindividual's or a group's vision of the world and the only methodwhich can truly explore the reasons for the actions of others. Thisis demonstrated in the work of Cicourel. Through participantobservation, Cicourel was able to find that police officers madevalue judgements based on social class which largely determinedwhether they defined someone as a juvenile delinquent. Cicourelpointed out that the police officers were unaware that they weremaking value judgements based on labelling before they decidedto stop or arrest juveniles. If they had been given a questionnaireor interviewed, this information would not have been uncovered,but participant observation can be used to uncover taken-forgranted assumptions.

Participant observation is a method of sociological enquirywhich is considered to be rich in validity. This is because theresearcher is able to gain very detailed information which wouldbe difficult to elicit through any other method. This is shown inParker's work, View from the Boys. Parker claims that throughparticipant observation he was able to gain an understanding ofthe behaviour displayed by a group of boys and the motivationfor their criminality. Parker argues that the insights which hegained about the boys' criminal activities would probably nothave been uncovered using any other method of sociologicalenquiry. While respondents may not give accurate responses toquestionnaires and interviews, the observer is in a position to askquestions as and when they arise, and consequently can get atruer account of social life as it is experienced by the individual.The observer is able to find out what individuals actually do ratherthan what they say they do. This is supported by Whyte, StreetCorner Society, who claims that his involvement in participantobservation gave him the opportunity to ask questions which hewould never have thought to ask in an interview situation.

In the case of questionnaires and interviews, the relationshipbetween the researcher and the subject is relatively short-lived.

important to set the scene andacknowledge that there are twotypes of PO.You will notice that this paragraphoffers a brief description of theuses of POand provides anexample. Examplesare goodbecause they demonstrateapplication skills.

This paragraph, like the last,demonstrates some advantages


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Question2

This paragraph introduces thelimitations of PO.The readerknows that this is an evaluationbecause the paragraph startswith the word 'however'. Thismay seem simplistic, but it iseffective. The use of key wordsIike this is sometimes knownas signposting.

This paragraph offers a countercriticism of participantobservation. 'Nevertheless' isan excellent linkwordfor thispurpose. This is a good paragraphbecause it offers the threeelements on which yourperformance is measured in the

members of the gang he was studying were issued questionnaireswhich aimed to investigate their personal activities, the ganglooked at the questionnaire with distrust and suspicion.Participant observation is the best method of sociological enquiryto use when sensitive areas, such as gang culture, need to beinvestigated.

However, participant observation does have a number of limitations. Researchers may be limited in what they can study effectively. For example, it would have been difficult, if not impossible,for Oakley to use participant observation as a method of enquiryin her study of housework. In addition, researchers must takeother factors into account when deciding to embark on a participant observation study, including their own sex, age and race.For example, a white female might find it difficult to become aparticipant observer of a black gang. Similarly, an older researchermight find it difficult to join a youth subculture.

Many researchers believe that research methods in sociologyshould be drawn from the natural sciences and are consequentlycritical of participant observation as a method of sociologicalenquiry. These researchers argue that a limitation of participantobservation is that each study is unique to the particular groupunder investigation and therefore difficult to replicate. The dataachieved via participant observation are not measurable. Thismeans that there is no way of checking the reliability of theresearch, and that generalisations cannot be made from the resultsof the observational study to account for the actions of others.The observer cannot be sure that what was found through observation is representative of the whole population.

Nevertheless, those who support participant observation tendto argue that what participant observation lacks in reliability,it makes up in validity. However, the idea that participantobservation leads to valid findings can also be questioned. Thereis a danger that the presence of an outsider can influence andchange the behaviour of those being observed. This is known asthe 'Hawthorne effect'. Whyte admitted that the researchermight influence the group under investigation. In the study Street


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be investigated, therefore natural behaviour cannot be guaranteed. In addition, there is a danger that the researcher may becomeover-involved in the activities of the group and may as a consequence be biased in the reporting of activities. This is known as'going native'. There is no way of knowing if the researcher hasretained objectivity in the course of the research.

Moreover, participant observation has practical limitations.Unlike questionnaires, conducting a participant-observation investigation is both time-consuming and expensive. The very natureof participant observation means that only one group can beinvestigated at a time. Research which uses participant observation as its method of enquiry may only be relevant to a particulartime or place. It presents sociologists with a snap-shot of societyrather than identifying laws which govern society.

In conclusion, although participant observation has some significant limitations, it also has a number of uses in sociology. It isdifficult to imagine how an accurate study of gangs could beachieved without the use of participant observation as a methodof sociological enquiry. In order to address the limitations ofstudies conducted by the use of participant observation, someresearchers have adopted methodological pluralism, for example,Humphreys's Tearoom Trade, the observational study of malehomosexual activity in public toilets, conducted follow-up interviews in order to test the validity of his original observations.

The concluding paragraphsummarises the fact that PO hasuses and limitations. You will notethat the conclusion of the essayis similar to that of the previousessay. This is because the sameinformation can on occasions beused in more than one essay aslong as the information fits. Ininstances like this, there really isno need to reinvent the wheel.

Students tend to like participant observation as a research method because it is used in whatseem to be exciting studies. However, a mistake which students tend to make is to describe theins and outs of the actual investigation, especially in studies which are a bit risque. For example,some students can write pages and pages about Laud Humphreys's study Tearoom Trade.Examiners would rather know what the results of the study mean for participant observation asa research method. So beware.

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